Strictly star Nicola Adams has opened up about her childhood, claiming her dad’s abuse got so bad that, as a nine-year-old, she thought about killing him.
The 37-year-old professional boxer, who is set to make her dancing debut on the BBC show next week, didn’t have it easy as a kid.
She and her mum, Dee, lived with Nicola’s abusive father for a lot of her childhood. He was controlling and Dee wasn’t allowed friends or to go out when she wanted to.
Read more: Strictly Come Dancing’s Nicola Adams – everything you need to know
Speaking to the Mail Online, Nicola said: “He’d get violent with both of us. Because I have ADHD, when I was younger I was very hyperactive, so it was very, very hard for me to keep still, especially when he was watching TV.
“So, I was always getting into trouble with my dad. Sometimes, I felt, I was getting hit for no reason.”
Things came to a head when Nicola was about nine years old. She told her mum that they needed to leave him.
What did Nicola say to her mum?
She remembered seeing a TV show that made her think the only way out was to kill her dad. A family on the show was going through the same situation – they ended up killing the father and burying him in the garden.
Nicola recalled: “I remember saying to my mum: ‘It’s going to be OK, I’ve seen a way we can get rid of Dad on TV, I just don’t know where we’re going to put the body because our garden is concrete.’
“That was a pretty big wake-up call for my mum.”
Thankfully, Dee and her daughter were soon given safe accommodation through a housing association.
Nicola went on to make her mum proud – her career saw her win two Olympic gold medals. She was an awarded an OBE and retired from the sport with an undefeated record. She also held the WBO female flyweight title in 2019.
She’ll be making history once again when she will be part of the first same-sex partnership on Strictly.
It’s not been confirmed who with just yet, but she is rumoured to be partnered up with professional dancer Katya Jones.
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